The use of the Internet for electronic commerce and for information retrieval has rapidly proliferated in today's modern world. Hundreds of Internet sites and Web portals are constantly accessed by millions of users for obtaining information, news, entertainment, and the like, via the World Wide Web. Many aspects of business and commerce utilize the Internet for communication and coordination. Additionally, many aspects of everyday life are becoming electronically information based, and the access, control, and use of such electronic information, through the use of various types of electronic devices, is never far from hand. For example, a desktop computer allows access to banking functions (e.g., checking, bill paying, etc.), shopping (e.g., groceries, clothing, etc.), the weather, and virtually any other need of an individual. Popular forms of computer-based entertainment, such as multi-player network or on-line games, are using the communication capabilities of the Internet.
Many users are increasingly relying on the easy access to network-connected information resources, such as the millions of Web sites on the Internet, to fill all their basic everyday needs. For example, users have become familiar with the Internet destinations that help them to accomplish whatever business or pleasure they require. These Internet destinations are increasingly being accessed through mobile embedded devices. Examples of such devices include: Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, watches, embedded micro-controllers, and the like. As devices capable of accessing the Internet and performing useful tasks become increasingly pervasive, users will focus less on particular aspects of a device and focus more on the usefulness of the pervasive services made available through the device and its associated computer infrastructure (e.g., a network-connected device). A mobile embedded device (e.g., a personal information device such as a palmtop computer, cellphone, or the like) allows information access to be always close at hand.
Mobile embedded devices in use today provide computing power, but operate under increased resource constraints compared to their desktop or server counterparts. While desktop computer systems often use microprocessors running at clock frequencies of 1 gigahertz or more, and are equipped with 256 MB of RAM or more, a typical handheld computer device has only a fraction of such power. As a result of these resource constraints, mobile embedded devices are greatly limited in the complexity of software programs they can run and the richness of functionality they can provide.
Mobile embedded devices also tend to have less local persistent storage in comparison to a typical desktop or server computer system. The lack of any sizable local persistent storage means the majority of mobile embedded devices are unable to overcome their resource limitations through conventional prior art techniques, such as, for example, through placing data temporarily on persistent storage (e.g., a hard disk drive).
An additional problem is the fact that mobile embedded devices are available from a much wider variety of system manufacturers in comparison to, for example, desktop computer systems. As mobile embedded devices become more popular, the number of manufacturers, and thus the number of different system architectures available in the marketplace, increases. This causes a great diversity in the architectures of the various devices. This diversity will make it increasingly difficult to construct suitable software for every device combination that provides the desired functionality.
Thus, what is required is a solution that compensates for the resource constraints of mobile embedded devices. What is required is a solution that compensates for the lack of any sizable local persistent storage in mobile embedded devices. The required solution should allow a mobile embedded device to run a larger, more resource-intensive software application despite the limited computer system resources of the device. What is further required is a solution that supports the great diversity of different architectures of various different mobile embedded devices existing in the marketplace. The present invention provides a novel solution to these requirements.